When most CEOs talk about decarbonizing aviation, they lean on government mandates and futuristic technology. Patrick Gruber isn’t one of them. The CEO of Gevo believes the future of sustainable jet fuel lies not in subsidies but in chemistry, capitalism, and corn.
In this wide-ranging conversation with Carbon Herald during Climate Week New York, Gruber and Chief Business Development Alex Clayton explain how photosynthesis, ethanol, and a dash of Midwestern pragmatism could create jet fuel that’s both cost-competitive with oil and genuinely carbon-negative. “Photosynthesis is a miraculous thing,” Gruber says. “You just have to use what nature already gives you—smartly.”
The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Carbon Herald: What is the big picture of your approach to jet fuel and its sustainability.
Patrick Gruber: When we think about the new generation of fuels that have improved performance from a carbon standpoint, and performance from a pollution standpoint, I’ll tell you one thing you have to be—cost competitive.
The actual advantage we think about is when you’re capturing CO2. We need a renewable carbon source—that’s CO2. Photosynthesis is a miraculous thing, putting that carbon into solid form in plant matter. But along with the carbon comes its electrons. That’s a huge advantage.
So the task at hand is to capture that carbon and its electrons and convert it into something we can use for energy. A very practical way of doing that is: photosynthesis makes a carbohydrate, carbohydrates make an alcohol, which we’re all familiar with, that’s beer, right?
“What are we going to do—waste it and do nothing? No, I think we should turn it into energy, and that’s what we do now.”
That alcohol serves as an intermediate by which we can do chemistry. And the chemical process—copied straight out of the petrochemical industry—has been done for decades. We can convert that ethanol into ethylenes, and then make it into jet fuel, building it up as a chemical plant.
It’s not a refinery, but by doing that, it can be economical on a cash-cost basis and competitive with petrochemicals.
So how do you make it and pay back the capital of the plant?
Patrick Gruber: Whenever you’re processing something like corn as a raw material, you have, for every weight measure of ethanol, one protein too. Raw protein is a co-product. You also get one of CO2, a co-product value. So in other words, it’s three equal parts from any weight of corn.
That’s why you see people wanting to grow corn, it’s actually grown for the proteins, not the carbohydrates. This is a misconception in the marketplace. In fact, it produces about as much protein per acreor hectare, as soy. It produces about the same amount of oil, too. It just produces an immense amount of carbohydrate.
So what are you going to do with it? Make more high-fructose corn syrup? Anybody want that? Anybody want more corn sweeteners? What are we going to do—waste it and do nothing? No, I think we should turn it into energy, and that’s what we do now.
The game then is to make a cost-effective hydrocarbon product that can be delivered by capturing the value from all the co-products that make it possible. The co-product values come from not only the regulatory market values you can capture but those are transient and go away.
So instead, we want voluntary carbon markets to develop, and they are developing. That’s what I think is going to be important in the long run.
What’s the practical side of bioenergy with carbon capture (BECCS) right now?
Patrick Gruber: The most obvious thing of all is taking the bubbles out of the fermentation. That’s CO2, like in any ethanol plant. It’s concentrated CO2. A very short time ago it was CO2 in the atmosphere—capture it, clean it up a little bit, it’s already concentrated—put it down a hole. That’s the most practical thing, and that’s what BECCS is.
We happen to have a plant in North Dakota that’s ideally situated on top of an ideal well. Ours is a very simple situation. We’re learning that it’s actually quite a lot of work to get it all vetted, documented, certified, insured—the whole bit—to convince people that this is legit and real. They haven’t seen much of it. But it has great potential. It’s practical.
If you’re making a hydrocarbon, like we plan to do, putting a synthetic aviation fuel (SAF) plant will use ethanol as a raw material. By supplying renewable energy, we keep the footprint down. We’re already very low. That’s how you get such a low-carbon footprint jet fuel. It’s very practical.
Where are you seeing demand for SAF?
Patrick Gruber: There’s actually a shortage of jet fuel projected by the Energy Information Agency, about 2.3 billion gallons per year by 2035. Now refineries are shutting down in the U.S. That means there’s incrementally less jet fuel.
Already, we’re importing a lot from Asia to supply the West Coast because it’s too expensive to ship from the East Coast. So how do we fulfill that? Are we going to import more? Build new refineries? Probably not.
If there were no SAF, jet fuel prices would rise, possibly up to $1.30 a gallon over that period, just from supply and demand. That explains why the industry is so keen on SAF—without it, prices go up. So SAF helps hold prices down.
However, SAF must be cost-competitive. Airlines don’t want to pay more, and typically can’t do long-term offtake agreements. That’s difficult for them. Airlines are focused on Scope 1 emissions, but the Scope 3 buyers carry the clout.
So in SAF, you have two products: the gallon of jet fuel, and the carbon. The carbon can be sold with the fuel or separated. I like the latter model and that’s why it’s important to establish voluntary carbon markets, so people understand they’re paying for real, traceable carbon with real value.
Airlines want cost-competitive jet fuel. Fine, we sell the carbon, take advantage of the co-products, and deliver that. Problem solved.
Are your credits (generated from Gevo North Dakota) eligible for programs like CORSIA, or are you focusing on voluntary demand instead of regulated systems?
Alex Clayton: We haven’t pursued CORSIA eligibility. Its benchmark is about $21 a ton, which doesn’t even cover our variable operating costs. Our credits are designed for companies that have already reduced emissions by changing electricity sources, using renewable energy credits (RECs), and are addressing the last 10% of residual, hard-to-abate emissions.
These credits permanently remove carbon for 1,000 years and are best suited for corporates with internal carbon prices (say $100–$150) who want to invest in deeper decarbonization. The value lies in partnering long-term with organizations ready to move from offsetting toward insetting, using the same project and system over time. As we both learn and evolve, their decarbonization strategy and our collaboration will evolve with them.
What about the value chain complexity?
Alex Clayton: There can be six or more individual actors in that chain. If they’re not all aligned on the value proposition, you get people making independent decisions and selling lower-value partial credits here or there.
If you embed carbon tracking within the products going downstream, you can unlock more value. Knowing where all carbon is counted, created, and transacted creates certainty. Especially when moving beyond existing decarbonization structures, you need to prove nothing upstream impairs your Scope 3 claim.
That’s why we’re building a bulletproof, traceable digital ledger—end to end.
Patrick Gruber: Right now, we’re seeing people claiming “wastes are zero,” but they’re not. You must account for the entire lifecycle.
There have been criticism about the use of land for increased ethanol production. Why do you disagree with them?
Patrick Gruber: Because there’s no factual data supporting them. They’re economic theories. Actual data from the Energy Information Agency in Europe shows no correlation between ethanol expansion and deforestation. In fact, they’re counter-correlated.
You can literally chart deforestation decreasing while ethanol production increased. So rather than argue, just measure directly. We can measure land use anywhere in the world and prove what’s grown where. That’s what we believe in.
How does this tie to agriculture more broadly?
Patrick Gruber: Agriculture’s purpose is to produce protein and oil, food [comes] first. Corn and soy are the most productive per acre because they yield both. The carbohydrates are by-products, so you either waste them or use them.
So why grow energy crops when you can grow protein crops? We’re out to feed the world and make food more available and affordable. If food is important, walk the talk and produce food. Then use the by-products for fuel.
What is the scalability of Gevo’s model?
Patrick Gruber: Ethanol has reached a practical market size. It’ll grow globally, in places like Japan and India. Jet fuel is the next wave. We can also make diesel or gasoline, but jet fuel drives adoption.
When SAF is implemented, it will require tracking, tracing, and carbon documentation. It must be economical—otherwise, nobody adopts it. The only way is to sell all co-products and prove their value—especially carbon in voluntary markets.
If people believe in it, they should put their money where their mouth is. And they need to know they’re buying something real. That’s why we partner with Puro.earth and we have developed Verity, an end-to-end carbon accounting platform, that provides full, auditable carbon documentation. Transparency builds trust.
Finally, what’s next for Gevo?
Patrick Gruber: In North Dakota, we have a million-ton-per-year capacity for CO2 capture. We’re expanding. We plan to add a synthetic aviation fuel plant and to get it financed by mid-next year. We’re focused on modularization with factory-built, truck-sized modules shipped and assembled locally.
That allows faster scaling and lower cost. We’re already profitable as a company, which is rare for a tech developer. We have hundreds of patents and were the first to convert ethanol to jet fuel back in 2007–08.
We’re not chasing headlines—we’re building systems. Once we prove the economics and carbon monetization, we can deploy worldwide. Europe, Asia, India, you’ll see us there. We’re Midwestern pluggers. We just keep at it.
Read more: Gevo Kicks Off Sale Of Carbon Credits From North Dakota CCS Facility
